Psalm 8: The Worth of a Soul

This Psalm was exciting to start because it's very popular - quoted more than 70 times in the Scripture Citation Index, as well as being the textual foundation for they hymn "How Great Thou Art", one of my favorites. There's some really beautiful renditions on YouTube. This one is my favorite, though it's only a bit of the song. They chat first; the singing starts 30 seconds in:



The Piano Guys did a version:



There's lots more - this is a very popular hymn and there's a ton of beautiful versions. When I finished listening to the beautiful music, and settled down for some actual study, I found there's plenty of material to look through. The 8th Psalm itself is only 9 verses, but it's used in the Scripture Citation Index more than 70 times, and cited in 3 places in the New Testament.

In spite of all that, it's been a difficult one for me to work with. I read it several times, and looked through a number of the talks that referenced it (several of those were wonderful, and I shared a couple of them on the Mormon Bible Study group), but still, the chapter itself wasn't speaking to me. At all. So, after I muddled along, not getting it, for a while, I finally remembered to pray. It's good to pray about the scripture you're studying. (THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN OBVIOUS.) When I did, I was reminded to liken the scriptures to myself. And that one way to do that is to put yourself in them. When I did that, this is what I found:

---

 O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! ...
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, 
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is ____, that thou art mindful of [her]? 
and the [daughter] of man, that thou visitest [her]? 
For thou hast made [her] a little lower than the angels, 
and hast crowned [her] with glory and honour.
Thou madest [her] to have dominion over the works of thy hands; 
thou hast put all things under [her] feet: ...
O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
-Psalm 8 (likened)

---

And then it had impact. Then, I sat back and said, "Whoa." Because that's powerful stuff, putting my own name in this passage. The world is so effective at teaching so many of us that, "I'm just me; nobody important." So many believe that few would be impacted if we disappeared. But it seems clear that the Lord does not see us that way. Not at all. I'm still pondering this, and probably will be for a while, yet.